AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pednormead End: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, keep the ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your vehicle sits in Pednormead End, is normally all it takes when caught before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Pednormead End and Newtown run, with diesel for the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Pednormead End: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Chessbury Road, or at The Queens Head on the way home that evening.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Whether it happens in Chesham or the middle of Pednormead End, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Pednormead End forecourt or a driveway over in Griffitts Yard, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — at Amersham's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere you are across Buckinghamshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Ryecroft Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've located the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through its own spout.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Pednormead End already?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the BP, the Esso or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive in Pednormead End, leave the vehicle where it is.
Where your motor has run already, stop somewhere safe then switch it off. The next junction means where to come off when you're on the M25, under 10 miles from Pednormead End. Distance matters — a short hop across Pednormead End makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to St Albans — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Pednormead End, what takes place?
By Thomas Harding Junior School, near St Mary's Church Chesham or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What fluid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because those answers decide the work and quote. Nobody sets off until you have had the quote over the phone.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. Before leaving, we fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, provided the engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Pednormead End
Pednormead End is a suburban area in Buckinghamshire, situated near the riverside with an elevation of around 110 metres. Pednormead End lies approximately 25 miles from London and 12.6 miles from St Albans, with nearby places including Chesham and The Broadway. Pednormead End has a population of around 1303 people, predominantly residing in flats. Pednormead End is part of the wider South East region, with its riverside setting influencing the local character.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, Pednormead End included
Over HP postcodes, the teams that cover Pednormead End — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Waterside and The Broadway included. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting HP5 1.
Your car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Lowndes Park, a side street near St Mary's Church Rooms: we drain it where it is. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Chesham Bowling Club, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
Pednormead End motorists: the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Buckinghamshire.